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Autobiographical Memory in Borderline Personality Disorder and Depression1

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Abstract

Responses to an autobiographical memory test (AMT, Williams & Broadbent, 1986) are examined in a sample of 30 female psychiatric inpatients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) in comparison to a group of 27 depressed inpatients and a nonclinical control group of 30 women. Concordant with the literature, depressed patients retrieved fewer specific memories than the control group, generated significantly more categoric memories than participants of both other groups, and needed more time for retrieval. Contrary to expectation, patients with BPD did not differ from normal control participants in specificity, nor latency of their retrieved memories. In both clinical groups, hedonic tone of retrieved memories was more often negative than in the control group. In this sample of inpatients with BPD, specificity of memories was not related to self-reported level of depression, dissociative symptoms, or frequency of self-mutilation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Heidelberg, Germany

    Babette Renneberg & Monika Nobs

  2. Department of Psychiatry, University of Heidelberg, Germany

    Erika Theobald & Matthias Weisbrod

  3. Department of Psychology, Free University of Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195, Berlin, Germany

    Babette Renneberg

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  1. Babette Renneberg
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  2. Erika Theobald
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  3. Monika Nobs
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  4. Matthias Weisbrod
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Correspondence to Babette Renneberg.

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Renneberg, B., Theobald, E., Nobs, M. et al. Autobiographical Memory in Borderline Personality Disorder and Depression1. Cogn Ther Res 29, 343–358 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-005-4267-4

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